Pre-processing...

I like to devote much of the time I spend on a project to the design, wood selection stage and the latter stages , referring to board preparation, joinery and detail work. The intervening part about cutting boards to length and ripping these boards I leave to my machinery. This methodology also allows me to perform a better job of selecting parts of planks with which to incorporate in my project, since the laborious part about slicing and dicing the planks is done with safety and ease. I recently completed a sliding miter saw station to assist me in cross-cutting long, wide planks into more manageable pieces.

In the past, I would, through use of either a handsaw or smaller circular saw, try to accomplish this with varied degree of success. I had a miter saw station in mind for a while, and decided recently to go ahead and build one with certain criteria in mind. The station needed to have some portability since permanently attaching to a wall is out of the question for the time being for numerous reasons. The length ( 7 ft.) should allow me to safely and easily manage planks up to eight or nine feet in length and the height is sufficient for me not to need to crouch or bend down. With this in mind, the station also needed to be rugged to handle the heavier hardwood planks. I also needed to be able to work either on the left or right side of the sliding blade with appropriate adjustable flip stops and solid stops.

The sliding miter saw itself has all the features I need.. dual bevel, 10-12 inch wide capacity and 3-4 inch deep cut capacity. The station is composed mostly of baltic birch plywood with hardwood fences. The portability is there through use of two workmate type stands which can be folded and the whole unit with the saw removed can then be moved around. These stands easily handle the weight of the station and saw and any planks I need to cut and are rock solid. The station itself is attached to two large, wide planks spanning the workmate type stands. Having used the station for a week or two so far, I'm very satisfied with it as it meets all my criteria.

Small components...

I've been working on small components lately. The components are partially shaped and a great deal of handwork is involved to ensure all the components are uniform in profile, contour and overall dimensions. The components are part of larger pieces which are destined for a client. I kind of enjoy working on smaller components, it's a welcome break from the larger frame members typically used in furniture. As you can see in the photo, much handplaning is involved to develop the contours of the components. I make use of a spokeshave to round the edges out afterwards.

One of the problems working with small components is handling them while shaping them. Since the parts are small and low profile I use my planing board and raise the bed with a narrow sheet of masonite. This provides just enough of a stop for the small part as well as allowing me to handplane it, I place the part at the outermost edge of the planing board to add clearance for the shaping process. I do need to hand hold the components for some of the shaping or profiling though as the tapered shapes just aren't conducive to setting up firmly in a vise..

Interesting how second nature working with hand tools becomes once you've spent some time at it. A long while ago, I would seek out solutions to shaping issues through the use of machines. In the past few years I find it simpler and more efficient to pick up a handplane or a spokeshave and shape the component. No dust and instant results.

Recent exhibition...

A while ago I mentioned I was working on two pieces for both an local exhibition and a gallery. The exhibition piece is at the left and I had it displayed this past weekend. A little about it... Solid quartersawn cherry cabinet and dovetailed cherry drawer fronts. I have a subtle hint of lighter sapwood which meanders through where the cabinet doors meet. The pulls are carved cocobolo with contrasting colors, designed with the lighter maple stand in mind. The back panel is solid maple set in a cherry frame also selected to merge the stand with the cherry cabinet. I had something small in mind, and decided on the proportions of this cabinet to fulfill this requirement.

It was a truly enjoyable experience to design and create this and to slowly watch it evolving into a cabinet. The quartersawn cherry was somewhat of a challenge to handplane and I used a scraper extensively in the final stages of preparation of the components. There is a lot to be said for smaller work with smaller proportions, the focus can be more on selection of woods and detail. This cabinet is the smallest I have created so far. Having completed it I moved on to the stand. I wanted a contrasting wood in the stand with a somewhat interesting design yet maintaining structural integrity. In designing the stand I needed to take a criteria into consideration, namely the short depth of the cabinet above.

This short dimension introduced the issue of stability of the stand and cabinet. To compensate for this I have the stand slightly deeper than the cabinet above, but not by much. This is accomplished with the legs slightly proud of the cabinet at the front and back. To work this in, I decided on somewhat of a floating cabinet attachment to the stand, they appear to be separate from each other. To further increase the stability from front to back, I designed bird's feet into the stand to extend the depth of the stand just enough to make it fairly stable without an overwhelming appearance.

The diamond inlay in the front rail of the stand was an added touch to meld the color of the cabinet to the maple stand below in the most understated sense.

I thought I would share this design...

If interested, you can either select the image above for a larger view... a view of the interior of this cabinet and dimensions can be seen at http://www.refinededge.com/

Drawer pulls...

I resumed work on the beech cabinet this week. I thought I would begin with something small, as in drawer pulls. Actually the pulls are for the drawers and for the cabinet doors. I haven't decided on the final pull color or style and instead am going to make a sample of two pulls in different woods. These pulls will be similarly sized with a protruding four-shoulder tenon at the back and they will fit into a appropriately sized rectangular mortise. It's easy enough for me to accomplish this, to create two similar drawer pulls and this will allow me to consider the aesthetics of each pull sample on the cabinet.

I needed to do this because it was a toss-up between a blackwood pull and a cocobolo pull. Both might work equally well but I'm concerned of the amount of contrast between the pulls and the beech, should I have very contrasting colors or more of a subtle contrast. Having said this, I'm leaning towards the blackwood at the moment. A light tan background with a black pull works aesthetically in my opinion.

In the photo I have prepared a rectangular pull and am shaping the back square. This particular pull is rectangular, but I have the other option of a more sculpted, rounded pull. I'm not sure at this point, so I'll begin with this. I could have mocked up a small block of wood and darkened it black to be able to do this testing, but not too much more work is actually involved in making the blackwood pull, so I decided to do this instead. You can see the large block of blackwood in the background from which I have resawn and cut the small blank.

Off duty...

What does a furniture maker do in his spare time except spending even more time in the shop? Sometimes it's good to get away from the woodworking environment altogether and just do something completely different. In my case I like to get back to nature and do some hiking or kayaking in summer, skiing in winter, or anything outdoors for that matter. This past week my wife and I were away in the mountains for a few days of just this, getting away from everything, clearing our minds, and regaining focus. I have to admit, it's very hard for me to pull myself away from my studio and from my love of making furniture, but in the end I'm always glad I got away. Shifting focus is a good thing and often puts things into perspective.

We often head to an area two hours or so away, in the mountains, which prides itself on a very outdoor way of life. The surrounding towns and villages offer great craft and art type shops which open up the mind to new design possibilities. Something both my wife and I love to see is other crafts people's work, regardless of the media. We both have a soft spot for crafts and craftspeople in general and their typically modest, rewarding and fulfilling lifestyles.

While visiting some small shops, I found this beautiful small irregular shaped bowl, handmade in Central America. An ideal small piece to complement one of my small cabinets. The workmanship that went into this decorative bowl is amazing and I had to have it. I already have it placed in one of my cabinets.

I also had the opportunity to read parts of a good book, it is furniture related, but nonetheless I had the free time to be able to sit down and focus on this book, which I've sort of read before, but never really in depth. I find I need to set aside an hour or so every day to be able to catch up on my reading, usually much later in the evening at home. This doesn't always work out, and I begin to accumulate partially read books, etc. I'm a book hound and have shelves full of interesting books that I've read, but also a few small piles of books in the process of being read.. I still hope to address this dilemna somehow, maybe I'll just pack a pile of books into a bag and get away for a few days to do just this.

Drawers installed...

I now have the three drawers fitted and installed into their respective compartments, masking tape serving as temporary pulls :) The partial vertical divider I referred to earlier is also installed with the correct grain orientation which follows every other part of the drawer compartments. I like the idea of the divider as it separates the two halves of the interior. I have designed the drawer compartments to be accessible with one door open, so this makes more sense now. The transfer of light between the left and right areas is also a consideration, at least to me. I don't want to compartmentalize the individual areas above the drawers. Next, I need to decide on drawer pulls, I'll probably go with dual pulls per drawer to avoid any racking issues since the drawers are fairly wide.

And of course, what to do with the opening below the left hand drawer. I have a few options, okay maybe three options. Either it will be a hidden compartment, or a larger, deeper drawer for larger objects. The third option would be to simply leave it open and accessible. In any case, I'm excited about this since it opens up design possibilities to me. I might even apply some inlay to the facade if it is a hidden compartment. I will mull over this for a while while I move to another project I need to work on. and come back to this in a few days. My wife and I are also on a great three day hiking and outdoor vacation as we speak, up in the mountains. Time to clear the mind and get the thought processes recharged, something I like to do periodically.

Drawer completion...

The three drawers are fairly complete now. There is some back and forth between my bench and the cabinet to test fit each of the drawers and tune them to their respective openings, almost like a ballet. Everything went smoothly with relatively minor tuning and fitting. I don't have the drawers too tight in their opening to allow for seasonal changes in movement of the wood. I had the drawer fronts just a tad proud of the opening and dialed them in just so.

I normally don't attach the back of the cabinet until the later stages of completion, but it's been such a long time with this particular cabinet, I guess I did permanently attach the back panel months ago. The small problem this introduces is that I cannot fit the drawers in completely for there is no way to get them out again without a pull on the drawer fronts. Fortunately, the fit was so good that a strip of masking tape is all I needed to pull the drawers out from their fully closed positions.

There is considerable hand tool work involved in fitting the drawers, but relatively no dust is generated, just fine shavings. I also prepared the bottoms for the drawers by rabbeting a solid wood panel on three sides. The rabbeted portion fits into the groove on the drawer front and sides. The drawer bottoms are easily removed for any reason which might come up. I also loosely attach the drawer bottom to the back of the drawer to allow for some wood movement between seasons. In the photo, the lipped drawer in the foreground has the bottom partially installed with rabbets and grooves visible. Next I make the final test fitting of the drawers and install the cabinet interior divider I prepared in the meantime.

Drawer fitting...

The work of assembling and fitting the individual drawers into the drawer openings has begun. I work on one drawer at a time, assembling and fitting the back and bottom of the drawer. I also purposely leave the back a bit proud in order to tune the length of the drawer so that the drawer front is flush with the opening. The sides of each of the drawers are slightly proud also, just enough to be able to smooth the sides down uniformly with the drawer front. I find it important to orient the grain direction of the sides so that the grain is inwards from the front, this helps the handplaning part greatly. Also, these ever so slightly oversized measurements greatly reduce the chance for error in fitting and it all works out in the end.

I have also installed the rabbeted backs and pinned them to the sides, greatly enhancing the strength of the joint. The bottoms are custom fit to each drawer although most of the drawer bottom measurements are almost identical. I have oriented the grain of the drawer bottoms from front to back, this will allow for expansion and contraction of the bottom, or wood movement.

In the photo, the drawer at the front is the lipped drawer. I have left this one for last as fitting it involves an extra step of tuning the drawer front for a perfect fit with the lower drawer of the right hand drawer compartment. Most of my handplaning is done over at my bench at the other end of the shop and all of my dovetail work on this bench, I think it has mostly to do with the height of the benches, this lower one is more conducive to dovetailing, at least for me..

Drawer joinery...

Over the past day, I have been creating the joinery for the cabinet drawers. The joinery at the front is half-blind or lapped dovetails, whereas the back of the drawers is assembled with pinned rabbets. In the photo I have created grooves for the bottom in one drawer. The location of the groove is situated over a tail so as not to cut into the corresponding pin of the drawer front. A little trial and error measurement is necessary here, but it all works out in the end. The drawer sides have been purposely left a bit longer than necessary to be trimmed later and fitted with the drawer back. I will continue to work on the other drawer components and leave the lipped drawer last, as the measurements and offsets on this particular drawer are differently located. I like to plan ahead when creating dovetail joinery and mark all the components extensively, including the board orientation and reference faces and edges. It is very easy to get confused otherwise, not that it's ever happened to me :)

After completing the drawer shells tomorrow, I will make the drawer bottoms consisting of edge glued hardwood planed down to a fraction of an inch, to easily fit the drawer grooves. I should have everything including drawer bottoms, assembled and glued later tomorrow. There is some tuning and fitting involved for each drawer both at the sides and front to back. The drawer pulls come next and I'm currently giving this thought.

The combination of beech cabinet and sapele drawers actually work out very well, there is contrast but not overwhelmingly so, more on the subtle side. My other choice was to use cherry for the drawer fronts, but I have been using this extensively lately and wanted something different.

Drawer fronts...

I've been busy gathering the right wood for the drawer fronts, sides and bottoms. Drawer fronts will be Sapele, a fine-grained wood in the mahogany family. As part of the drawer front fitting, I cut the fronts oversize in thickness, width and length and then proceed to shoot the ends so they fit the drawer opening just right. I follow the same process with the width of the drawer front, handplaning and tuning it down to size. Prior to this, I had planed the thickness of the drawer fronts to fit the opening. The drawer front of the upper right hand set will overhang the divider providing a seamless look, I designed the divider to be shorter than the drawer opening by the thickness of a drawer front. Next, I begin dovetailing the drawer sides into the fronts and then create the grooves for the drawer bottom, in this order. Important to position the groove correctly over a tail so the groove doesn't exit through a pin in the drawer front. This would preclude using a stopped rabbet instead of a through rabbet.

I'm glad to have completed the stand as the cabinet has been occupying a cool rolling cart I built a few months ago. I now have access to my rolling cart once again, which by the way I'm kicking myself for not having made earlier. These things are great in the shop, allowing me to wheel components around to different benches and assembly tables, etc. Also, I haven't decided on the drawer pulls just yet, preferring to wait a few more days and examine some options in the meantime.

I'm also going to install a short divider between the sets of drawers creating more of a delineation between the left and right sides of the cabinet interior. The area above each of the drawer compartments is to be used to display an art object , the divider perhaps will separate the styles of art objects? It just feels right.

I'm still not sure how to work the area below the left hand drawer compartment into the mix. The design of this has been up in the air for a while, and I'm thinking once the drawers are in along with the divider it will make more sense and a a spark of imagination will occur, an "aha" moment. I'm leaning towards a hidden compartment at the moment. Or I might leave it open, in the spirit of "dynamic design", a philosophy I coined a few months ago.

Cabinet stand...

I assembled the stand and am test fitting it in the photo a few hours after glue up. It fits well and is in very good alignment with the cabinet. This is a concern otherwise the stand looks more like an afterthought than designed with the cabinet if it doesn't fit right. The twin stretchers at the bottom work out well and introduce a small focal point into the design. It is quite a small feat getting the rails and stretchers in position for the glue up and a good point to stop and plan this out well. I assembled the sides initially, then put everything together with the front and rear rails and stretchers. The upper and lower rails are mortised into the legs with single tenons, whereas the twin stretchers are dowelled into the bottom side rails.

I am quite pleased at the aesthetics of the piece and the harmony between the cabinet and stand. I needed to spend some time at the edge treatment phase of all the stand components. The edges of each component are slightly chamfered with a small hand plane, then the edge transition is touched with a very fine sanding block to knock out any sharp edges. Since this is all done by hand, I find myself counting the exact number of strokes with the hand plane, in this case two. It is recommended that all the components be completed in one pass to avoid confusion. In other cases, where multiple passes are necessary, counting the handplane strokes is a good technique.

The stand is also beech and all the front and side facing components have non-descript grain pattern, straight grain for the most part, to not introduce any crazy graphics which take away from the main focal point, the cabinet.

I'm kind of anxious at this point to complete the interior of the cabinet, create the drawers and a small partition, then the pulls, so I can begin to apply finish. I'm curious to see how the figure of the door panels comes out. Of course, I can always wet the surfaces with naptha to temporarily see the figure pop, but I can wait a few more days.

I had a little deliberation deciding on the final height of the cabinet and settled for a 55 inch height , along with a second opinion from my better half. Having the piece too low and it begins to look like a credenza , too high and the stand begins to look spindly. I also wanted to provide an opportunity to see the cabinet as a whole, including a partial view of the top. Accessibility and visibility of the cabinet interior is also important as this is somewhat of a showcase cabinet, and my wife and I did take this into consideration.